The winter of Huaynaputina

The mountain isn’t there. In its place, an explorer will find a double crater in the ground, several kilometers across, with thick ash on one side and an open side into a majestic river valley on the other. The debris is evidence of a violent past but it gives little hint of what was there…

Grimstone vs Yellowvötn: Battle of the Giants

Carl – May 9, 2014 (re-post) In the west corner of the ring you find Yellowstone wearing blue, red and white striped trunks and in the east corner you find Grimsvötn wearing Fire & Ice colored trunks. Welcome to a spectacular fight about who is the largest, meanest volcano on the block. As the fighters are…

Is that a volcano?

Someone once said that Iceland is one big volcano. Obviously, this is not true. In fact, it is not even one big volcanic system. Parts of Iceland are mainly powered by the Icelandic mantleplume, with just a bit of power coming from the spreading of the Mid Atlantic Ridge (MAR). Then there is a group…

The Bristol tsunami of 1607

I have seen fish and men hanging from trees, while the cow, sheep, and horse swam in the sea. Where wagons used to roll, there the skiff flies along with sails unfurled, and goes and returns by unaccustomed routes. (John Stradling. Source http://website.lineone.net/~mike.kohnstamm/flood/stradling.html) It was one of those days. Living on the coastal flood plain…

Theistareykjarbunga – Iceland’s Slumbering Giant

Carl / Originally published December 2011 This is a re-post of an article by Carl, written long before (in impatient volcaholic time-scales) fellow giant Bárðarbunga’s eruption. The Five Large Volcanoes of Iceland Iceland holds five volcanoes that in historical time have had eruptions transcending the 10 cubic kilometer mark during post-glacial times. The most obvious are of…

Super interested in supervolcanoes?

A few days ago, I wrote that we are currently living in a volcanic low period. The last significant eruption happened on the 8th of August in 1991 and the culprit was Cerro Hudson. It was a medium sized VEI-5 eruption expelling roughly 4.5 cubic kilometres of ejecta. After that there has been a 26-year…

Rockall: The lost continent of Middle Earth

Mid-oceanic rifts should be in the middle of the ocean they formed. And often they are, but there are exceptions. The Reykjanes Rift, south of Iceland, is one of these. It is well known for its connection to Iceland, and events there are often discussed in this blog. Reykjanes has separated Greenland from Scotland, and…